


A Stroke of Bad Luck

by laCommunarde



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Ableism, Abuse, Bullying, Childhood Stroke, Gen, Hospital, Hospital Care in the 1970s, Most Common Way for Aphasia to Happen, Pyromania, hypermasculinity, stroke
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-21
Updated: 2017-12-21
Packaged: 2019-02-18 02:41:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13090689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laCommunarde/pseuds/laCommunarde
Summary: In canon, Mick Rory has noticeable hesitation around words that he clearly has learned. This is known as aphasia. One common source of aphasia - particularly that gets worse when one is anxious or doesn't have someone around to answer any rebuttal - is a stroke. Given that he doesn't show any other affects, it could be a childhood stroke, in the 1970s, when no one really understood that children could even have strokes, let alone what this meant, and before Stroke Rehabilitation was really set up.





	A Stroke of Bad Luck

The little boy – scarcely older than a toddler, though his Mama said he would be old enough to go off to school the following year - squirmed into his Da’s barn, dodging past the various shears and shovels and seed bags lining the walls. He figured he had timed it right - his Da would just be starting to fix the tractor. It was his favorite activity of the day, one that he’d started sneaking off to watch last summer, even though he was supposed to be napping then. The sounds in the main section of the barn informed him he had showed up at the right time. 

The air was hottest at this time of day. He had heard his Da tell his older brothers that that was why he chose this time of day to be in the shade of the barn to do the repairs, which needed doing every day lest something big go wrong with the tractor and other big words that described equipment that served various functions according to what the season was and what the tractor was being used for at the moment. The tractor served a variety of purposes, he knew, like planting and watering and harvesting and taking older kids from school on hayride, which was a great responsibility their Da rested on the shoulders of the boy’s oldest brother, Jake. The little boy – youngest but for the babies – wanted to be entrusted with that wondrous responsibility, but for now, he was told to stay away from the tractor, and actually to stay out of the barn altogether. Da told him that no one could spare a moment to watch a toddler who kept sticking his nose where it wasn’t wanted, but the little boy trusted himself in here. After all, he was just watching. 

As long as he was just watching, he could come here every day and watch, and that meant his older sister, Jeannie, who was supposed to be watching him, could sneak into their Mama’s room to try on some of her expensive make-up. The little boy’s second-oldest brother Billy, who was twelve and a snot-nosed twelve at that, at least according to Jeannie and to their aunt, said that the make-up made Jeannie look like a cheap hooker. The little boy didn’t know what that meant but whatever it was sure made Jeannie start wailing on Billy with her fists. 

So he was here, during the hottest time of the day, wiggling through the farm equipment to get from a window to where he could watch his Da do his daily repairs on the tractor. Today, his Da was fixing the engine. He had all the parts carefully lain out in front of him and was picking up and polishing each with car oil – to make sure they moved smoothly, the little boy knew, and didn’t squeak or jam. 

There was a loud noise from outside and both the boy and his Da jumped, before realizing it was likely all the chickens putting up a call as they did whenever anybody went near them with anything. It was probably Jake coming back with the car from town. Sure enough, Da slammed down the part he had been polishing and shouted, “Jake, shut those damn chickens up, will ya?” 

The boy moved around to get a view of what was going on outside when he bumped against a board, one of the one that Da, Jake and some of the boys from town used to fix up the barn when something was leaky. 

The board swung. There was a creak from one of the pulleys up above, that Da and Jake used to store other farm equipment near the ceiling when they didn’t need it for a few months. The boy was aware that one of the ropes started moving quickly. 

And then something struck him on the head and he was falling.

\--

“Michael. Mikey,” he came to blearily to find his Mama saying. She was aiming for soothing, but her voice was ineffectively hiding a tone of panic. 

“He likes Mickey, Mom,” Jeannie said. 

“Who the hell cares what he prefers? Why was he up there in the first place?” Da roared. “And why weren’t you watching him?”

“Patrick, language.”

“Do I look like I’m in the mood to be corrected on _language_ , Fiona! What was the boy doing around that dangerous equipment anyhow?” 

“Jeannie?” Fiona turned to the fourteen year old. “Weren’t you keeping an eye on him today?”

Jeannie looked from one parent to the other and flushes red. “Uhh. He must have wandered off?”

Mickey coughed. Everyone’s eyes turned to him. “I’m sorry. I wanted to watch you fix the engine,” he explained. His tongue felt like cotton and his head was throbbing. 

“Well, things like this are exactly why you aren’t allowed to until you’re eight.”

Mickey pushed himself up so he was sitting. “I wasn’t hurting nothing, Da.” A wave of dizziness hit, so he had to close his eyes. “I don’t feel so good.”

“Have some water, Mickey,” his Mama said, shaking her head. “And, in the future, do as your father says.”

He nodded. His Mama helped him up. “If you do that again, I’m gonna have to take a switch to your backside,” his Da said, shaking his own head in turn before he turned and stalked out to go back to repairs.

Mickey nodded again.

\--

The next day at dinner, as Mickey was chewing on chicken and tomatoes, his mouth stopped working properly. 

The food in his mouth tumbled out. 

Jeannie, seated next to him, flinched, “Mom, he’s playing with his food.” 

Mickey stared down at it, because he hadn’t been at all. He was just eating and then it tumbled out. He looked up at his Mama and opened his mouth to explain. Or tried to. He managed to open his mouth, but his tongue felt too big and didn’t want to move properly, and he could only feel half his lips. The left side of his mouth felt like his feet went he sat on them too long: just not there. 

When talking didn’t work, Mickey gestured at his mouth and shook his head and tried to explain again. Pushing as hard as he could with the side he could feel, his mouth finally gaped open, but his tongue still wouldn’t move. Tears started welling up in his eyes. 

His Da, Jake and Billy – practically _everybody_ \- always told his that big boys don’t cry, so he wiped them away with his arm and sniffed back a desire to cry.

Mama frowned at him. “Michael, are you feeling okay?” 

He shook his head. 

“Do you want to go to bed?” she asked, in the same tone.

He nodded.

Da put down his fork. “He just wants attention, Fi.” 

“He doesn’t look good, Patrick. I’m putting him to bed.”

She picked him up and carried him to his bedroom in the converted storage room between hers and Da’s room and the babies’ room. Mickey was way too big for her to do that – he was a big boy now, he didn’t cry – but he didn’t mind it right now, and he clung to her.

She laid him down in his bed and put her hand across his forehead. “Well, baby, you don’t have a fever. I’d say just rest for now.”

He nodded. She picked up his jammies out of the bureau. He pushed himself up and raised his arms to let her put them on him. His left arm felt a little weaker than normal, but he just pushed it higher with an effort. She helped him change into jammies and tucked him in.

“I’m going back down to dinner now.”

His tongue began feeling pin and needles, like when he got off of his foot after sitting on it too long. That meant he’d be able to move it again soon. He nodded again.

“I’m going to turn the lights out. Try to get some rest.” 

As she was about to leave, he managed to get control of his tongue enough to say, “Thank you.”

He slurred a bit, but she didn’t notice. 

In the dark, he rubbed at his arm and pinched his tongue and lips. They still felt weird, all weak and wobbly, but at least he could feel them and move them. 

He wondered what had happened. 

\--

The next day, he was helping feed the chickens and the big, old pig Billy had named Bacon and Mama had renamed Grumpy when the arm that was holding the bucket of chicken feed lost feeling and dropped to his side, the chicken feed scattering as he could no longer hold the bucket upright. 

“Mickey! Watch what you’re doing?” Mama scolded. 

He tried to right it with the hand that was holding it, and failing to move it, reached over with his right hand to grab it.

“I’m sorry, Mama,” he said once he had it firmly in hand again. 

“Mickey, you have to pay more attention to what you’re doing!”

He knew that was her typical protest, and he was trying, but this time that was not it. He glanced away from her and said, “I was, but I can’t feel my arm.”

She glanced at his arm. “Did you sleep on it wrong?” 

He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

She sighed. “Come here. Let’s take a look.”

He walked over to her, put down the chicken feed bucket between them so the chickens could not get into it, and picked up his arm to hand to her. She stroked his hand. He could feel it but only very distantly. She took his hand and pressed it at various points. “I need to know if anything hurts when I do this.” 

He shook his head. 

She began pressing her thumb up his wrist and arm. She got to mid-way up his arm before feeling returned with a rush. His hand curled into a fist. He winced. 

“There we go, baby. Feeling pins and needles?” 

He nodded. “I can feel it now.”

“Good boy. Now let’s continue feeding the chickens and afterwards we can go feed Grumpy.”

He smiled, picked up the bucket and continued tossing the feed out to the chickens.

\--

A day later, as he was playing tag football with Jake and Billy, his left ankle twisted and wouldn’t untwist. He rubbed at it, because that’s what Mama did whenever something fell asleep, and then smacked at it, because that’s what Jake and Billy and their friends always did whenever their limbs fell asleep. Then he just started crying. 

The two older boys stopped. “What the hell is wrong with him, Jake?” Billy said.

“I don’t know. Go tell Mom.”

Billy turned to Jake with a groan, his voice raising up in whining tone. “Why I always gotta do it?”

Jake shoved him. “Cause you’re younger, that’s why, Billy!” 

Billy sneered. “I’d say we just let him sit there and cry it out.” 

Mickey gestured at his foot and grabbed at his pant leg to move it. Jake began chewing on his lip. “No. Listen. Go get Mom now. Okay? Or I’ll beat you up.”

Billy ran to go get Mama. Jake crouched down by Mickey. “Hey, Mickey. Stop your crying and tell me what’s wrong.”

Mickey gestured at his foot. “It won’t wake up,” he tried to say, but his syllables dragged and it ended up sounding like, “I-a’won wayuh.” He frowned at the missing letters and tried to find them in his mouth with his tongue. But his tongue was dragging.

Jake sighed. “Mickey. Mick. You gotta calm down, okay?”

Mickey looked at his brother and nodded. 

Jake smiled and tousled Mickey’s hair. “Now, does it hurt?”

Mickey shook his head.

Jake gestured at his foot. “What’s affected?”

Mickey pointed at his foot, to his ankle, and up to his knee.

Jake put a hand on his leg. “Does that hurt?” 

Mickey shook his head. 

Jake moved his hand down. “That?”

Mickey shook his head again.

Jake nodded and moved his hand a little more. “That?”

Mickey shook his head again. 

The process was repeated down his ankle and foot. 

“Well, you haven’t broken or sprained anything, so let’s see if we can turn your ankle right.”

He picked up Mickey’s foot and rotated his ankle. Mickey watched but couldn’t feel it. “That hurt?”

Mickey shook his head again.

Mama came out of the house with Billy. “How’s he doing?”

“He can’t feel his leg, but nothing’s broken or anything.” Jake stood up.

“What was he doing when it happened?” Mama asked.

“He was just running for the ball,” Billy said.

Mickey nodded in agreement. 

“I straightened out his ankle. Maybe it had something to do with that.” 

“Good thinking, Jake,” Mama said and crouched down next to Mickey. “Hey, Mickey, I think that’s enough playing with the older boys for today. Don’t you?”

Mickey nodded and reached for her. She picked him up, resting his head on her shoulder and petting his hair. “I’m going to take him in and put him down for a nap.”

Jake nodded.

After the kitchen door swung shut, Billy said, “So, you want to continue tossing the ball?”

Jake nodded, picked up the football, and threw it to Billy. “Sure.”

\--

Mama put Mickey to bed. He caught her before she let go of him. “Tay.” He couldn’t get his tongue to make the s. 

She put her other hand on his forehead. “Baby, Mama needs to go make dinner. Rest a little and I’m sure you’ll feel better.”

He nodded, knowing the importance of Dinner. 

“Try to rest, baby. I’ll come up with dinner later.”

He sighed and closed his eyes. She turned out the light on the way out. He thought he could hear murmuring outside, likely to Jeannie as it sounded like two female voices. But he was trying to be a good boy and rest. So he willed himself not to let his attention go onto them and just to focus on sleep. 

However, that provided him plenty of time to think about how he couldn’t feel the weight of the blanket on his leg or, he found, his arm. He tried to wiggle his toes and couldn’t tell if they were or not. A glance down at the blanket and a repeated attempt said that they were not. He took a deep breath and tried to be a good boy and not start crying, though it was difficult. But if he focused on finding out what was going on, that seemed to distract him.

Left arm, leg and the left side of his tongue all didn’t work. Right side still did. No lack of movement or feeling there. He took a deep breath. 

He must have drifted off because he awoke when Mama was bringing him food in bed, which must mean he must be really sick, because he had only ever seen her do that when Jeannie had a fever of 104 and when Billy caught the flu. She gave him soup, which he ate. He drooled, though Mama seemed not to mind, and then she left one of the storm candles burning inside an oil lamp on his dresser when she turned out the lights and advised sleep again. He was able to rotate, with difficulty, onto his side, and kept his eyes on the storm candle to keep from thinking about what could be going wrong, which would lead to crying and he didn’t want to cry, until he fell asleep. 

\--

The following morning, he awoke to find Dr. Francis, the kids’ doctor, looking down at him. “Hi, Mickey. How are we feeling today?”

Mickey blinked up at him. “Hi-ya,” he managed to say.

“Can you sit up for me?”

Mickey shook his head and then, to make it seem like he wasn’t just being disobedient, he patted his left arm and picked it up in his right, holding it out to Dr. Francis. Dr. Francis didn’t take it so Mickey let it flop, and pointed at his leg as well. 

Dr. Francis nodded. “I see, Mickey. You may have to spend the night at the doctor’s office so I can keep an eye on you.”

The only time he had ever heard that was when the words “near death” had been uttered, or in the case of Spot the barn cat, when someone was not going to make it home again. That must mean it was very serious, that his condition, whatever it was, was very dire. Tears jumped to his eyes. “Am I-ya gon ta die?” he asked, merging the consonants with the next syllable to make them easier to drag his mouth into. 

Dr. Francis smoothed Mickey’s hair. “No, Mickey. You won’t die. Now I’m going to help you to sit up.” Mickey nodded and Dr. Francis supported his left side as he sat. “If I let go, can you stay sitting up?” 

Mickey thought about it, tested it and seemed to be able to. “’es,” he answered, finding that “yes” could be said without moving his mouth.

The doctor took his hand away from Mickey’s back, opened his bag and took out a little rubber hammer. “I’m going to check your reflexes, Mickey.” Mickey nodded as the doctor placed his hand over Mickey’s knee and hit the back of his fingers. Mickey’s right knee bounced. His left almost kicked the doctor’s kneecap out. 

“Was-sa mean?” Mickey asked.

“I’d like you to smile for me,” Dr. Francis said.

Mickey tried to smile, but could only feel half his face responding. He brought his right fingers up to find that the left side of his face wasn’t responding. He pushed it up so he was.

“What stuffed animal would you like to have with you at the doctor’s office tonight?” Dr. Francis asked.

“Pfig Pfear,” Mickey answered as best he could.

“I’m going to go meet with your mother outside.”

Dr. Francis left the oil lamp burning on the top of the dresser. Mickey turned and stared at it to get his mind off whatever was happening to him, which would hopefully keep him from crying and let him act like a big boy. So he stared at it, watching the flames lick at the inside of the glass lamp cover, wondering where the breeze that occasionally blew it was coming from and how it was able to move the flame behind the glass. 

Dr. Francis came back in with Mickey’s Mama, who came over and picked him up and clutched him to her hard enough it hurt. “Baby, you’ll be okay. Okay? But I want you to be brave. Can you do that for me?”

Mickey murmured. “’es, Ma-ma.”

“Good boy, my baby.”

He put his head against her cheek and hugged her tighter with his not-useless arm. 

A quarter hour later, he was buckled into the back seat of Dr. Francis’ car and driven away.

He was not driven to the doctor’s office but to the hospital. “Whey?” he asked.

Dr. Francis answered. “We’re at the hospital, Mickey. You’re going to be spending the night here, and then tomorrow, we’ll go back home.”

Mickey felt his heartrate start to speed up too fast. He couldn’t get enough air to his lungs. “I’n no’ dat tick-ka!” Mickey said. He might have shouted it actually, but surely he could be forgiven: his ears were pounding, and he didn’t have control over his volume, and he just felt sick, and he wanted to go home.

Dr. Francis turned around and leaned between the front seats to put a hand on Mickey’s arm and forehead and force him to look at him. “Mickey!” he called. “Calm down. Mickey, I want you to count to ten with me. Can you do that? One. Two.”

Mickey caught up to saying it with him after five. “Good boy,” said Dr. Francis after he got to ten. “It’s just for a check-up, same as you have with me, just with equipment they only have here. Understood?”

Mickey nodded. Dr. Francis took him out and carried him into the hospital before putting him into a wheelchair – “It’s just procedure, Mickey. I promise,” which though it helped him realize there was no need to panic, it didn’t really: the white everything of the hospital was so unlike everything at home, and the hostile smell that everything was coated in was making his eyes sting, so he still had an elevated heart rate and couldn’t get enough air, and what’s worse, he was still on the verge of tears, and Mama had said to be brave. And he wished he had something other than Big Bear to distract him, even that storm candle covered by the glass oil lamp cover had worked better than nothing. He could look at it and let his mind go off on the endless games of why and how that he liked to play with himself that he planned to ask next year when he got to school, because surely the teachers would know all the answers and not tell him to be quiet and to stop being silly. 

And at least the candle had provided him that distraction and therefore calm. Here, there was nothing to distract him from the question of what tests they had to run on him that involved equipment only had at the hospital, because he wasn’t sure he believed Dr. Francis, not really. But what that could mean for him, whether that meant he was very sick and no one would tell him because they all thought he would start crying like a baby, whether he would die like Auntie May had and wouldn’t see his family ever again, and he’d be buried underground and left there for worms to eat. 

And he needed a distraction, otherwise he would start crying. He put his bear on his lap, picked up his hand and moved his fingers like one would move a doll, then pushed him fingernails into his hand and noted that he couldn’t feel it at all, even when he pushed so hard that he started drawing blood. He stopped doing that, put his hand on his lap and rubbed at it to make the blood go away before anyone could notice.

They wheeled him into a room and then without warning picked him up and put him down on a bed. “Was wrong with me?” he asked and thought he got that through with enough clarity.

“Michael, try to rest,” one of the doctors in white said to him. He had an awful haircut and his hair was shiny like it was wet or greasy. 

“Whas ong-ga wit-sa me-ya?” Mickey enunciated, bringing his working hand up to his lips to make sounds his lips would not on their own. He picked up his hand and shoved it at the doctor. “Tis does s’not-ta ‘ork-ka!” His tongue and mouth dragged and he couldn’t stop the air from making a goofy “a” after every syllable, but at least it was clear enough to be understandable.

“Stay still. We are trying to find out the extent of the injuries, Michael.”

“My-a name-a is-sa not-ta Mi-ka.” He couldn’t get his tongue to make an “l” sound. It was worse than making an “m,” where he could go into it but then couldn’t get his lips apart again.

Dr. Francis came in. “Mickey! There you are!” 

Mickey nearly burst into tears, which made no sense to him – after all, he was relieved to see Dr. Francis, unlike this doctor. Asshole… Jake and Billy would have called him asshole, which Mickey was never to say aloud, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t think it at this doctor. He held his working arm up for a hug. Dr. Francis gave him one. 

“Mickey, you’re going to have to be a good boy and do what the good doctor tells you to, okay?” Mickey frowned as best he could and nodded. 

Dr. Francis tried to disentangle himself and Mickey pulled him tighter. “’tay?” Dr. Francis met his eyes. Mickey remembered his Mama’s instructions that adding please to things made them more likely to happen. “Pa-wease.”

Dr. Francis smiled at him and nodded, and Mickey let him disentangle himself and pull up a chair. The doctor got a few tools, a hammer similar to the one Dr. Francis had used on his knee, a tongue depressor like were in popsicles he and his siblings got on the Fourth of July and in the hottest summer, and a few others Mickey did not recognize, and then pulled up a chair opposite him. 

Mickey waited as he did a lot of tests, including the hammer thing but on his elbows too, and then pressing – or trying to with his left hand – against the doctor’s, then having him smile and nod and blink. Then he held down his tongue and had him try to say each letter of the alphabet, which Mickey knew: he had older siblings, but it was hard to get his tongue to say it, especially with the tongue depressor in his mouth. 

“Stay put, young man,” said the doctor after a while. Mickey nodded. The doctor and Dr. Francis left the room but didn’t close the door all the way.

“Well, he’s not getting any worse, and the stroke doesn’t appear to have affected his mental facilities at all, only physical ones. Whether he will regain those is anyone’s guess, but I would recommend physical therapy exercises and watching him. It’s new, and it goes against everything we were taught, but it might help. I would hate to see so young a patient have his life thrown away because we didn’t try something. He will have to stay overnight. Did his parents mention what he was doing?”

“He was playing outside with his brothers. But earlier this week, he was in his family’s barn and a ceiling board fell on his head.”

“That could have done it. Children this age.”

“Yes, I know, Richie.” 

“Ken, I know you know. But what I’m saying is it could have been that, it could have been something else as well. We’ll never know.”

“I still think, given the recent head injury.”

“Oh, very likely, yes. But we’ll never know.”

Their voices faded off into the distance. A nurse came in. “Hello, young man. I will be bringing lunch later and helping you go to the bathroom.”

Mickey scoffed. “I-ya don’ta nee-da hep! I’m a pfi-ga pfoy!”

The nurse shrugged. “I am to help you get there. Can you stand up?”

Mickey tried. With much effort and only half his body actually working, he got onto one foot. 

The nurse seemed genuinely impressed. “Very good, young man. Now can you walk?”

Mickey put his other foot down and tried to put weight on it. It did not hold his weight and he fell. With nothing to stop him, it could have been a bad fall. She caught him. He clung to her arm, trembling. 

“May I carry you to the bathroom?” she asked.

He nodded.

When she put him back into bed, she said, “If you need anything, there is a little buzzer there. If you push it, it will notify the main desk and they will get my attention or one of the other nurses.”

He nodded again, and she left the room. And he was alone.

He clutched at his stuffed bear and began playing games with her ears, covering her eyes and hopping her across the bed. However, within fifteen minutes he was bored and his back was itchy.

Someone, a different nurse, stopped in with a folded blanket to put in one of the closets. She looked over at him and brought over a coloring book and crayons. “These are for you. There is a table here. Would you like it up so you can color?”

He took them. “Thank you.” She put it up and continued on with her duties. He opened the coloring book and took a red crayon and colored with it, at first trying to stay in the lines, then in big angry strokes across the pages, which his Mama would be angry at him for but which helped for some reason – he didn’t know why. He colored that way until the red crayon broke. Then he shoved it back into the box and folded up the coloring book.

The nurse who had promised lunch came back in. “I need to draw blood from you.” She took his bad arm and wiped it down in the strongest smelling stuff he had smelled. He wrinkled his nose and then she held it, moved her thumb around and stuck him with the needle. 

That he felt. “Ouch!” he said.

“You do have feeling there?”

He nodded. 

“I’ll be careful then.” She drew blood from it. He watched as she filled three tubes of in, then took out a Mickey Mouse bandaid and put it on him. Before leaving, she scribbled down a note on a chart.

He was left alone again. He could color more but he didn’t want to. Instead he set out the crayons on the table and moved his arm over to where his hand could grasp at the crayons if it really wanted to. He took a deep breath and stuck out his tongue. Carefully and with enough effort that tears sprang to his eyes, he dragged his pointer finger across the inch across the desk so it touched the orange crayon. As if rewarding his hand, he curled his fingers around the crayon with his right hand and just let it stay there, as though he could feel the pressure. He thought he could a little, and it helped to see it curled around something instead of flopping about uselessly. 

He gave himself a five-minute break then opened the coloring book and tried to move his left hand onto it. His hand didn’t respond at all. He tried again, finally finding that shoving his jaw in the direction he wanted his hand to go actually helped and allowed him to jerk his hand sideways over the coloring book. Then, he moved his jaw back and forth and tried to hang on for dear life to the crayon and dragged his fist with the crayon poking out the bottom back and forth across the page until his arm hurt and was shaking from exhaustion. 

The doctor came back in with his Mama and Jeannie. “Ma-ma!” He smiled up at them and noted that Jeannie’s eyes were puffy from crying. He wondered whether she had gotten walloped from Da. 

“Baby!” She ran over to him hugging him.

He wrapped his working arm around her. “I’m-a not-ta pfapfy!”

“You’ll always be my baby, Mickey.”

When she said something like that, he knew it was said with so much love that there could be no protest.

He pulled back. “I can move-a my fing-as.”

“That’s wonderful, Mickey. Do you want to show me,” she told him. He nodded, opened the coloring book, curled his fingers around the crayon again, and, moving his jaw back and forth again, he managed to move the crayon back and forth across the page again.

This time his Mama burst into tears, and Jeannie took her from the room. He wasn’t sure what he had done wrong. When the doctor asked for his arm again to take a blood sample, he held it up with his good hand without meeting the doctor’s eyes and did not try to speak.

The nurse came in with jello and soup. He ate it, but couldn’t keep his lips curled around the spoon so some dribbled out. Oh. “I’ma sorry,” he told the nurse. “I don’ta mean-a to eat-ta like-a pfapy.”

“You’re doing very well,” she told him.

He gave her his best sardonic expression. “No-a, I’ma not-ta.”

He could hear his Mama, Jeannie and the doctor talking outside after the nurse had told him to take a nap. “Full paralysis of his entire left side. There will likely be residual effects, even if it has stopped for the time being and can be reversed. Is he in school?”

“No, he’s going to be entering kindergarten in the fall.”

“That will likely have to be delayed. In many cases like this, even when the child is alright and it is a one-time event, the patient does not regain the ability to walk. Additionally, his mind could be delayed as well. And there could be developmental effects.”

“Are you telling me he’s going to be stupid just because he was where he shouldn’t have been and something fell on him?” He froze. His Mama’s voice had never gone dismissive and cruel like that in regards to him before.

“That would not be the professional word, but yes.”

“He’s too bright to be stupid!” Jeannie protested. He could almost hear the expressions they were giving her, and he felt hot with shame. He would still be smart, he made a silent promise. But he wished he had something to play with that wasn’t his stuffed bunny and something to do that wasn’t the stupid coloring book. Actually, he wished his hand worked so he could color properly without having to move his jaw back and forth to control his hand, and his legs so he could even get to the bathroom on his own like he wasn’t a baby being potty trained, and his lips so he didn’t drool and could speaking without having to try so hard to move his mouth. His eyes began stinging, for all big boys didn’t cry. And he sat and willed himself not to let any tears spill over.

The doctor’s voice cut through his reverie. “We would like to hang onto him to observe him a few more days, but at this point, it’s up to him whether he wants to get better or not.”

“If there’s nothing you can do for him, I’ll take him home then,” she snapped at him. 

“We believe he should be here a little longer.” 

“If there’s nothing you can do, why should I leave him here to ring up a bill?”

“We could watch him for free. Just to make sure he doesn’t relapse or die.”

“You’re paying for it then.”

“Fine. Just long enough to make sure he doesn’t relapse.”

“After that, how likely is he to be useless?”

“I wouldn’t say he will be useless. You love him.”

She sighed. “Yes, I do. Come on, Jeannie, we’re going home. You will call if there are any developments?”

“I’d like to see him,” Jeannie protested. 

“He’s trying to nap,” the doctor said. 

“I won’t make any noise. I promise,” Jeannie insisted.

“Very well. Run in and see him,” the doctor said.

The door opened and he pushed himself up. “Dean-nie.” He smiled at her.

“You should be napping,” she told him in that bossy tone of hers. He didn’t understand why, but it filled him with joy to hear her use it, even though normally he hated it.

“Not ti-erd,” he sounded out.

“What’s wrong with your speaking?”

“My-ya tong’ga doesn’ ‘ork-ka,” he emphasized. “Tis-sa paw-ta.” He reached up with his good hand and indicated the left side of his mouth. “Ah-so, my-ya ‘ips-sa don wor-ka.”

“I can’t understand you, Mickey.” Jeannie took a step forward and then glanced at the door, and though unsure. “They haven’t said your contagious or anything, have they?”

He shook his head. “Tey haven’t-a sai-da anytin-ga at all-a! And-da what-a is con-ta-da…?”

She frowned a little at him. “Oh, are you trying to say that they haven’t said anything at all? About any of it?” He nodded in response to her question. “They’re trying to find out as quickly as possible. They do think you’ll get better though.” 

He beamed at her then he remembered what they had actually said and his face fell, “I could-a he-ya tem-ma, Dean-nie. Tey don’-ta tin-ka I’ll pfe apfle ta wal-ka again-na.” 

She sighed and looked at the floor then back at him, “Prove them wrong, okay, Mickey?” He nodded. “And the second question, it means somebody else can’t catch it.”

He shrugged. “I don’t-ta tin-ka so-a. ”

“Good.” She came over and hugged him. He hugged back with his good arm. “Now be good and get better.” 

He tucked himself back down and fell asleep, curled his already numb hand under his cheek with his good hand, and closed his eyes. 

\--

He woke back up to find the same nurse as gave him soup and carried him to the bathroom in the room. “Mickey, I need to take you to another room to do some testing. Do you understand?”

He nodded. 

She picked him up and put him in a wheelchair. “Are you ready?”

He nodded again. 

They left the room. “The room we’re going to is at the other end of the hall. Do you want to see how fast we can get there?”

He grinned – or tried to grin, the left side of his face didn’t respond – but she got it and began pushing the wheelchair at a run. He laughed and hung on tight as they barreled down the hallway and around the corner.

Once there they stopped. She pushed the chair into a room, deposited him onto a bed. “The doctor will be in to see you in a few minutes,” she told him and left the room.

He lay there, noting how cold it was in the room, for what felt longer than a few minutes, before a doctor finally came in. “How are we doing today, Michael Rory?”

“It’sa Mick-ey!”

“Mickey? What a nice name? Now let’s see if we can find out what’s going on with you.” The doctor put on his stethoscope. Mickey knew that word. He had one his Jake and Billy had played with that had been handed to him two years earlier. 

“Hwut’s ong-ga hwit me-ya is I-ya can’ta moofa half-a my-ya pfody!” Mickey said – too quickly: he couldn’t even make out what he was saying and he was the one that said it.

The doctor stared at him with a frown on his face for a minute. “Yes, do you know the word symptom?”

Mickey shook his head.

“Symptom means that it’s a side effect of the real issue. We’re going to find out what the real issues is, what’s causing you not to be able to move half your body.”

“I-ya was hit-ta in-a te head-da pfy a pfoard-a in Da’s-a pfawn,” he stated, just for the record.

The doctor sighed. “We’re going to find out if that’s related. It might not be or if might have just been an immediate cause. We want to make sure there is nothing wrong with your heart.” The doctor reached over and handed him a board. “Here. This is what can happen during a stroke.”

Mickey stared down at the pink, red and blue shapes on the board. The pink was laid out in an oval that looked like it was drawn by a shaky hand. It was divided into four sections with red and blue fat lines running out of it with little black arrows indicating direction or something near each of the lines and in the oval itself from one chamber to the next. Over on the red line out, which was about the width of his thumb, there was a yellow block most of the way across it. He had no idea what he was looking at. His nearest guess said maybe it was an engine like the type his Da drew when teaching Jake and Billy about the tractor and cars. His second best guess said maybe “abstract art” like Jeannie brought home from art class, in the style of something called Picasso. “Was-sa?” he asked.

“It’s a heart.”

“I-tsa not a heart-ta. Heart-tsa ah ‘ike tis.” He demonstrated a valentine heart with his good hand.

The doctor chuckled. “That’s a Valentine’s Day heart. This is what the heart in your body that pumps your blood looks like.”

“It-ta ooks ike an engine!” Mickey commented.

The doctor beamed at him. “It does, doesn’t it? Well, it is. It’s the engine for the human body.” 

Mickey stared at him. 

The doctor continued, “The blood pumps through the heart like this.” He swirled his finger around. “Then goes out through here.” He pointed at one of the red lines going out of the engine – heart. “However, if there is a blockage here, that might mean you cannot move half your body.” Mickey’s eyes widened, and he picked up his bad arm and let it flop back down. “Yes. Exactly. We want to make sure that isn’t what’s going on with your heart.” 

Mickey nodded. 

“So first I’m going to listen to your heart. Then, I’m going to give your heart an ultrasound, which involves sticking electrodes onto you with jelly. Now take a deep breath.”

Mickey did. The doctor put his stethoscope to Mickey’s chest. “Hold it. Now let it out.” Mickey did. He was told to take two more, before the doctor noted something down on his pad of paper and took the stethoscope out of his ears. 

“I didn’t hear anything unusual.” 

He pulled out a bunch of wires and a jar of something that looked like clear Jell-O. He pressed something on the ends and then swiped it through the Jell-O. “I will stick this to your chest now.”

Mickey nodded. 

The doctor attached the sticky gel to his chest. It felt like an ice cube being put down his shirt. He shivered. “If you could sit still,” the doctor told him. He tried. The doctor hooked the wires up to a machine, which proceeded to give a visual up and down line. 

“Wassat?”

“That’s your heart rate,” the doctor answered. “Everything appears normal, but let me check to make sure.” He put his stethoscope back on and held it to the inside of Mickey’s good elbow. It was cold enough to hurt. Mickey flinched but kept his arm still. The doctor listened to it for a minute then put it on his bad elbow and listened to that. He jotted something down in his notebook. 

“Now I’m going to draw blood. I need you to stay still.”

Mickey nodded. The doctor took his bad arm and swiped it with rubbing alcohol strong enough to make Mickey’s eyes sting, pressed his thumb against the inside of his elbow and frowned. Mickey only had enough time to frown back before the doctor grabbed his hand, swabbed the back of it with the too-strong alcohol and stuck a needle into the back of it.

Mickey couldn’t move his arm, but that hurt bad enough that if he had been able to move it, he would have pulled his hand back and never let the doctor near it again. As it was, his entire body was jolt upright. He clenched his jaws as much as he could and grabbed his lower arm hard enough that he no longer felt most of it. 

The doctor misinterpreted the gesture. “That’s good of you. If you hold it still while the needle fills up, the needle should fill up faster.”

“I-ya can’t-ta move it-ta,” Mickey answered, his tone biting. His eyes wanted to cry. He wouldn’t let them, but it was taking so much effort not to that he wanted to hit something, probably this doctor with his pleasant, mild facial expression.

“I know, but you’re still being very brave,” the doctor told him. Mickey wanted to respond by saying it wasn’t like he had a choice about it, but he figured he could quite get the words out right. 

The tube filled up, and the doctor replaced it with another one. Mickey lost count after four tubes. By the time the doctor said he was done and pulled the needle out and then pressed a cotton ball to the back of Mickey’s hand, he felt dizzy and sick and wanted to lie down. 

“When you go back to your room, there will be a cookie and apple juice waiting for you.”

The doctor left and Mickey sat there in the cold room for what felt like hours until the nurse poked her head in. “I’m here to bring you back to the room.” 

Mickey nodded and didn’t protested when she picked him up and put him in the wheelchair, pushed him back to the room, or deposited him back into bed. She spun around his table and, sure enough, on it was a juice box and a cookie. He grabbed the cookie and ate it, then used his hand to open and close his mouth, since he had taken too big a bite of it. The nurse checked with him to see if he had too big a bite, but he showed her he was managing to chew it. “Have some juice,” she said after watching him eat it with a frown on her face. He did and felt better for it.

“Do you want to color or sleep?” 

“Seep,” he said, because l’s could go to the bad place right now and stay there forever and ever.

“Alright.” She lowered his bed into sleep position. “Remember that button on the side of your bed of you need anything,” she said, turning off the lights.

He yawned and fell asleep. 

He only woke up twice to drag his arm over when he tried to turn over.

He was woken up for dinner, which consisted of soup and mashed potatoes. He ate it, using his hand around his mouth to keep from drooling like a baby. He colored for a little, with his good hand because his left hand hurt from his efforts at moving it.

When the nurse was tucking him back into bed, he asked, “Miss good-a nuss, was you name-a?”

She laughed and smiled at him. “Miss Betty is my name if you need me for anything. But Miss Good Nurse can be my name between us.”

He smiled as she put his bed back. “Okay, Miss Good-a Nuss.”

“Goodnight, Mickey.” 

\--

Jeannie was there when he woke up, dressed up nice in her school uniform. “How are you?”

“You-a should pfe a sool, Deannie,” he told her.

She frowned for a moment than nodded. “I used my allowance money to take the public bus here, and then I’ll take it to school. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“I till can’ta move it-a.” He gestured at his left side then touched his face.

“But it’s no worse, right?”

He smiled, or half-smiled. She made a concerned expression. “No-a wuss!” he answered her. 

He picked up his left hand and shoved it at her, then took her hand and put it in his. Then he closed his left hand around her fingers with his right, and having done all that preparation, he willed his fingers to squeeze around hers. They both watched as his fingers moved just a little bit, but it was enough. She beamed and hugged him so hard it hurt his shoulder, but he determined that it was in a good way.

“That’s wonderful!” she said. “Now I gotta go or I’m gonna be late. Don’t tell Mom I was here, okay?”

He nodded. “Secet’s safe wit-sa me.”

She walked to the door, picking up the schoolbag she must have set there before he had woken up. “Deannie?” he said.

She turned to him.

“Sank-asa fo comin-ga to see me,” he said.

She ran back and kissed him on the head and then was out the door before he could wipe it off.

Miss Good Nurse came in a few minutes later. “I saw your sister was here.”

“Don’ta te Mama. She was suppose-ta pfe on-a te sa-kool-pfus, pfut sung pfy he-e on her way-ya.” He frowned and sighed a long-suffering sigh, as only a small child can. “I hate pfees.”

Good Nurse nodded. “I know. They are hard to make with only half your lips, aren’t they?”

“You-a had-a…?” He gestured at the left half of his body.

She shook her head. “My dad did. Half his face.” She pulled her face down. “Because he was older when he had it, the doctors don’t think it will move again. But you are very young, so you can recover. But it will be hard and take a lot of work.”

He nodded. “I-ya wi. Wat-a should-a I-ya do?”

After bathroom and bath time – where he insisted she help him rather than carry him to the bath, and he made it, even if it involved hopping, as he couldn’t feel his foot at all and it wouldn’t support his weight, and after breakfast – which consisted of cream of wheat, he found himself seated on a tricycle with his foot held in place by a strap like what Jake and Billy and Da put on the donkeys to lead them around. But it held his foot on the pedal and she was telling him to try to push down with both feet, which meant that she was telling him to ride a bike inside. He found it utterly delightful, as did she, judging by the little smirk she got when he asked her if it was against the rules to ride a bike inside, so he tried. 

He succeeded in running into the wall five times. But Miss Good Nurse said he did very well, so he was basking in that glow until it came time to again be taken to the room where his blood was drawn the day before, where he again held out his arm, was stuck by the needle and taken back to drink a juice box and eat lunch. 

Lunch consisted of a bowl of soup and a thing of jello. The soup tasted okay. The jello tasted better. He told Miss Good Nurse and she laughed and told him to eat his soup anyway. She was nice, he wanted to be told he was a good boy again, so he did.

Afternoon consisted of more exercises and another rubber hammer applied to his knee. The doctor noted something down but didn’t say whether it was good or bad. 

Miss Good Nurse was back in later that day. “Your mom called and said they were busy at the farm. So I’m here for visiting hours to make sure you don’t get lonely.”

“Fisitin hours?” he asked. “Wassat?”

“A time when people can come visit you in the hospital,” Miss Good Nurse said.

He gave a little shrug. “They aw-ways pfusy wit te farm,” he informed her.

She nodded, biting her lip like Jeannie did when he had reached a conclusion he really shouldn’t have. 

“What-ta?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I’ll be here for visiting hours,” she stated.

He nodded.

She took out a coloring book and they colored together and talked. He made jokes some that he had heard, some that he made up, and she laughed. Then she had to go do nurse duty for someone else.

Dinner came and another nurse came to bring him to the bathroom. This one just carried him, despite his insistence that he could walk with help. 

Morning came with more blood tests and another trip to the machine with the jell-o and the wires that beeped as it was supposed to. Another cookie and juice awaited him when he got back along with Mama.

“Mama!” he hopped to her. 

“Mickey!” she scooped him up and hugged him to her. “How are you?”

“I-y am-ma gettin-ga pfetter,” he carefully sounded out.

She took a deep breath and looked down at him, picking up his left hand in hers and squeezing it.

“How’s he doing?” she asked Miss Good Nurse.

Miss Good Nurse smiled. “Much better than he was. Isn’t that right?” Mickey smiled back at her, resting his head on his Mama’s shoulder.

Mama shook her head “How soon will he regain full movement? In time for school in the fall?”

Miss Good Nurse frowned. “I might keep him out a few more weeks.”

Mama set him on the bed and said, “I don’t have hands free to watch him and the babies, not since we’re sending Jeannie to a summer classes program.”

Miss Good Nurse glanced at Mickey, who was hauling his leg out from the bad position his Mama had deposited him on the bed in. He smiled at her. “With work, he should be able to attend school. But he will likely need physical therapy.”

Mama frowned. “And how much will that cost?”

Miss Good Nurse frowned back. “I can provide it. I am getting my specialization in stroke care.”

Mama glanced her up and down and nodded. “Fine. When can he be taken home?”

“You should speak to the head doctor about when,” Miss Good Nurse answered.

“Mama, it okay-ya. I’ma earnin hwalkin again-na.”

“Baby, I can’t understand you. Speak more clearly.”

Mickey’s face fell, as he was rather proud of how clearly he had been speaking. He tried again, ending the syllables too soon rather than too late and pausing between every word to avoid slurring them together. “I tot I was.” It was exhausting to speak like that.

Mama came over and hugged him. “Baby, give Mama a hug. I will see you tomorrow, okay?”

Mickey embraced her and said, “Okay.”

Mama put him down and swept from the room. 

Miss Good Nurse said, “I’ll be right back.” Mickey nodded as she left the room. He could hear them arguing, but not what was being said.

When she came back, she looked notable agitated. “Come on. How did you like that bike yesterday?”

Mickey brightened. “I-ya iked it-ta a yot!” 

“Good. Then let’s go.” 

Mickey spent the rest of the morning riding it around the hospital after Miss Good Nurse and saying hello to the other patients in the hospital, who were overjoyed to see a toddler saying hello to them, though one of the older ones whose room was smelly said he was very articulate for a two year old. He corrected her that he was four. She laughed, complained about how her reading glasses were on the side table and Miss Good Nurse delivered her a tray of food. 

Mickey wound up staring up at a dark-skinned, very skinny person with a halo of close cropped black hair and the tiny boy who was sitting in bed on her lap. Together they were reading a book. He started in. Miss Good Nurse stopped him. “No, Mickey. Let them finish reading.” 

Mickey looked up at her. “Tey ook nice.”

“They are.” Miss Good Nurse seemed pleased that he thought they looked nice. “She’s Ella and that’s her son.”

“H-why ah tey he-e?”

“Ella’s getting treatment for cancer. And her son is here visiting her,” Miss Good Nurse told him.

“Oh. Whas cancer?” he asked on realizing he didn’t know.

“It’s an illness where the cells in the body – little tiny things that make up your body – start growing at such a fast rate where they shouldn’t be growing and push healthy cells out of the way.”

Mickey nodded and looked back at her. “Pfut you can-a fik it-a, ight?” he lowered his voice to ask.

“Yes, but not easily.”

Mickey nodded. “I-ya hope-a see get pfetter soon.”

After she was done reading and had closed the book, they went in, Miss Good Nurse on foot, Mickey on the bike with training wheels. The little boy saw him and tucked himself up smaller, peering at him with piercing eyes. 

“Hello, Ella. How are you today? And how’s little Leo?” Miss Good Nurse asked.

Ella gave a weak laugh and nudged the boy. “Leo, answer her.”

“Good. Thank you, Miss,” the boy – Leo - said.

“Here is a juice box for you, little Leo.” Miss Good Nurse held out a juice box to him. He uncurled just enough to take it. 

“And who might this be?” Ella nodded at Mickey.

“I’m-a Mick-ey.”

“Like Mickey Mouse?” Leo asked, looking interested.

Mickey frowned. “Yeah, so what-a?

Leo smiled. “Cool!”

Ella laughed. “It seems you two are making friends.”

Mickey asked, “Why-a ah you he-e, Leo?”

Leo looked up at Ella and curled into her arm.

“He’s here visiting me,” Ella said, petting the boy’s hair.

“Oh, I’m-a he-e be-a-cause tis s-topped workin-ga.” He gestured at his entire left side. 

Ella turned to Miss Good Nurse, alarm showing through in her expression. 

“He had a stroke,” Miss Good Nurse explained. 

Ella glanced back at him. “He’s so young.”

Miss Good Nurse nodded. Mickey rode the bike closer to Leo, who was leaning out in interest.

“HI-ya,” Mickey greeted.

“I like your bike,” Leo said.

Mickey beamed and looked at Leo. “I like your hair. It looks soft.” 

“It hurts when Daddy brushes it, so I let Mommy brush it,” Leo said, touching it.

"Is Eya your Mommy?"

Leo nodded. “Yeah.”

Mickey smiled. “Deannie brushes my hair.”

“Who’s Deannie?” Leo asked, glancing at Miss Good Nurse.

Mickey shook his head. “My-a sister.”

“I don’t got a sister,” Leo said.

“You have any buthers?”

“It’s brothers, not buthers,” Leo informed him.

Tears jumped to Mickey’s eyes. “I’m trying!”

Leo hid behind his mother’s arm again, looking scared. 

Mickey sighed. “I didn – did no -ta - mean to.”

“Ok,” Leo said, untucking himself from his mother’s arm.

“Can he come-ma pway-ya wit me-ya?” Mickey asked.

Ella smiled down at Leo, who had turned to smile up at her at Mickey’s suggestion. “Provided you play in here, I don’t see why not? Is that okay, Miss Becky?”

Miss Good Nurse smiled at both of them. “It should do both of them good.”

Leo slid down the bed and said to Mickey, “Can I ride your bike?” 

Mickey looked at the bike and at how his foot was tied on. He knew he could not get off of it. “Umm.” However, he remembered how Pa used to take him on the tractor on his lap. Sure, he was not as big as Pa but Leo was so little. “If you-a sit on-a my-ya nap-pa, I-ya can-na take-ka you ridin-ga wit me-ya.”

Leo peered at him. “Do you mean lap?”

Mickey nodded.

Leo scrambled up into his lap. “That ok?” he asked.

Mickey nodded and rode them around the room, while Miss Good Nurse sat with Ella as she ate. 

When Miss Good Nurse said it was time to go, Leo got off and then waved at Mickey as he and Miss Good Nurse left.

On the way back to his room, his leg from his thigh down to his foot started aching, but it was a good kind of ache, the type when he was playing with Jake and Billy too long and his lungs hurt. He pushed with his good foot, trusting the bike would bring his bad foot the rest of the way around. It did, and when he got back to the room, he accepted being picked up and carried to the bathroom and then to bed. 

“So you made a friend?” Miss Good Nurse asked after he was there.

He nodded and smiled.

“I’ll bring you down there the next time he’s in.”

“Tank you,” he said. Something else occurred to him based on who was closer to him, versus them, at the far end of a hall. “Why are they so far away?”

Miss Good Nurse shifted uncomfortably. “This is the west wing of the hospital. They are in the east wing.” 

“Why?” he asked.

“Ella is black.”

Mickey rotated his body to look up at her in surprise. “Tat’s what a bwack person is ike?”

Miss Good Nurse frowned. “Yes.”

“See was not dirty or mean tough!”

Miss Good Nurse winced. “No, she wasn’t. Who told you black people were?”

“Pa did.”

“Fathers aren’t always right about everything,” Miss Good Nurse said.

“I ike her!” Mickey declared. 

“Very good. Mickey, I’m going to tell you something and it won’t be easy but I want you to try.” Mickey nodded. “I want you to try to form your own opinions about people rather than taking what is told to you about them.”

Mickey nodded. “I wi try.”

“Good.” Miss Good Nurse smiled at him. 

“I sill don know why see is in anoter win-ga,” Mickey said.

“A lot of places are still segregated by color.”

“Oh,” Mickey took in the new information. “It should no pfe.”

“No, it shouldn’t.” She smiled at him. “Places actually have to try not to be. But many individuals still don’t want to be treated next to a black person.”

Mickey looked up at her. “Tat’s sa-tupid.”

Miss Good Nurse smiled at him. “Yes, it is. Adults sometimes are.”

Mickey stare at her, unsure what to do with this information, so he filed it away for future use and changed the subject. “Can I-ya have a duice pfok-as?”

She smiled at him and handed him a juice box.

\--

The following day he went back down the to play with Leo again, following his daily blood drawing in the cold, doctor’s office, his daily knee tap with the rubber hammer, and his visit from Jeannie. He was able to drag his foot after him and hobble to the bathroom all by himself, and he was able to clutch the little toy they gave him to squeeze - just a little and it hurt, but he was able to get actual movement out of his left hand. He got a cupcake – chocolate with vanilla frosting and real sprinkles – for that. 

Then he went back down to play with Leo again with an attitude that whatever that term was – segre-something – could go to the bad place if it kept him and another kid he could play with apart. 

Leo was sitting there next to his mom in a big chair instead of next to her on the bed when Mickey arrived, foot strapped down to his bike pedal, which he insisted on tying himself this morning, even though he still couldn’t do bows. “Leo,” he called over.

Leo scrambled to his feet, eyes wide, all but standing at attention for a moment. His eyes were red and puffy, though he was not crying anymore and wiped his arm across his eyes when Mickey came in. When he saw who it was, he smiled and ran over to Mickey. “Shh! Mommy’s asleep,” he said in the loud whisper of someone who doesn’t quite know how to whisper yet, but knows he should. He gestured back into the dimly lit room. “Mommy had chemo this morning, and… and I don’t know what that is, but it always makes her nap all the time, like I used to when I was a baby, but the docs say she’ll get good-er? Better soon if she does it and naps after.” 

Mickey didn’t know what chemo was either, but if it made her tired all the time, it must be serious. “Oh. Can you-a come-a to pway wit me?”

Leo looked back into the room at his mommy and nodded. “There’s a room with lots of toys I remember from when Mommy would take us here when I was little.”

Mickey nodded. “Do you know h-where it-ta is?”

Leo turned and beamed up at him. “I love how you talk.”

Mickey frowned until it turned into a pout. “I don. It’sa hawd-a.”

Leo shrugged. “Then why don’t you talk easier?”

Mickey sighed. “It’sa hawd to talk at-a all!”

Leo frowned as if he was having a think and one arm across his chest and rested his chin on his other fist. Mickey thought he was silly, in a good way, but didn’t want to laugh because it looked rather serious and Pa and Jeannie had both said not to interrupt people when they were thinking. Finally, Leo brightened. “I like talking! I’m a regular chatterbox! So I’ll talk for you!”

Mickey grinned. “Tank you.” 

Leo put on a concentrating face and looked around. “I think the room is this way. C’mon.”

Mickey followed. They edged past an empty nurses’ desk, Mickey on his bike, Leo on the handlebars because that how big kids took passengers on bikes, and into a room with a lot of chair and a basket full of toys. 

“See? Told ya so!”

Mickey nodded. “Et’s pway!”

Leo climbed off the bike, steadying himself against it so he could balance and then turned to Mickey, who was frowning at his foot. “C’mon.”

“I-ya tied-da it in a doupfle knot,” Mickey explained. He had no idea if his foot would even move anyway to get him over to the toys. 

“Why?” Leo asked.

“So it ould tay on da pedal,” Mickey told him.

Leo came back over to him, staring at the knot on his foot. “Can I help?” 

“No-a. I have ta earn how ta untie it-ta on my own-a!” Mickey declared. 

Leo squatted down and stared at his foot and the difficulty he was having untying it. “What if I untie it, and then when we gotta go, you tie it back up, and show me how to.”

“You can’ta tie a knot-ta?” 

Leo shook his head. “My shoes are Velcro.” 

“Okay. Pfut ony if you don get tem more knotted.”

“Won’t,” Leo said, reaching his chubby little fingers out – almost thinner than the shoelace Mickey had used to tied his foot down – and wiggle them through the knot and out the other side to wiggle the knot lose. Sure enough the knot came lose.

“Tat’s helpfu.” Mickey picked up his leg with his hands and dragged his foot over the bike.

“Luh. Luh luh luh luh luh,” Leo said.

“I can’ta do it yet, okay?” Mickey snapped, raising his voice, grabbing his bad arm and holding so tight it hurt. 

Leo’s face showed a moment of shock and terror before he started crying. 

That stopped Mickey’s pout. “I didn’t mean it,” he said.

Leo swallowed his tears, but shoulder shakes said he had the hiccups. He nodded. “Okay.”

They played with the toys for a while. Leo seemed to love seeing how fast he could build the marble machine and let the marbles run down it. Mickey loved the toy catapult attached to a tank. 

“There you are, boys!” Miss Good Nurse said. 

An older man with sandy but graying hair and a farmer’s sunburn if ever Mickey saw one came over and scooped up Leo, who began to cry out, saw who it was, and his cry turned to a squeal of happiness. “Grampa!” 

“Hey, monkey!” Leo’s Grampa gave him a raspberry on his bared stomach, making Leo squeal even more. “Are you getting lost and having the nurses search the hospital looking for you?” 

“Uh uh!” Leo rotated himself upright and caught onto his grampa’s shirt. “I made a friend and wanted to show him the toys!” 

“Did you now?” Leo’s Grampa looked at Mickey for the first time and squatted down next to him. “Hello, young man. Were you watching my grandson?”

“Hwe hwere pwayin’ wit te toys. He showed tem-a to me,” Mickey explained, trying to have it come through as clear as possible.

Leo’s Grampa said, “Didn’t understand the first part of that sentence, so you gotta forgive me. But from what I got, I heard toys. My grandson showed you the toys?” Leo took the opportunity to inch his way up his grandfather’s arm. 

Mickey exhaled in relief and nodded. 

“Do you have a favorite?” 

“Ma favor-it-ta un is te cat-pult.”

Leo’s Grampa frowned again but eventually nodded. “The catapult, huh?”

Mickey grinned and nodded. Leo meanwhile had gotten his short, toddler arms and chubby, toddler hands firmly in place to let him move his legs freely. 

“You know, half your face doesn’t seem to be working properly, kid.”

Mickey glanced at Miss Good Nurse. 

“He is in here for stroke treatment,” she explained.

“Ain’t strokes typically what make older folks kick the bucket?” Leo’s Grampa asked. Leo managed to get one leg anchored beside his arm.

“Sometimes they happen in children.” Her voice held a certain sadness to it that made Mickey go up to her and hug her leg. She laughed and smiled down at him.

“Huh. Nothing contagious, right?” 

Miss Good Nurse shook her head. “An injury.”

“Huh.” Leo’s Grampa nodded. Leo stuck his hand across his grandfather’s forehead, trying to pull his other leg around. “What are you doing, my little troublemaker?” Leo’s Grampa reached up and took Leo’s down. Leo’s did a little ahh shucks gesture with his fist. “You was trying to climb Mount Grampa, ain’t’cha?”

“Maybe,” Leo said from in his arms again. 

“Let’s go say goodbye to your Mommy before I take you home,” Leo’s Grampa said.

“When will she come home?” Leo said.

“Don’t know, my little angel. She’s got the operation later this week. Here’s hoping she’ll be out soon after.” He carried Leo from the room back in the direction of his mom’s room. 

Mickey looked up at Miss Good Nurse. 

“Did you have fun?” she asked.

“M’a sorry I-ya din’t tell you hwhere hwe hwere goin,” Mickey said.

“I’m just glad you had fun and made a friend.”

Mickey nodded and beamed. 

“How is your leg feeling?”

Mickey reached down and picked up his leg with his hand, shaking it from side to side. “It doesn hurt-ta as much as yesterday.”

Miss Good Nurse smiled. “Good for you. Do you think you can ride back to your room?”

Mickey nodded, sat on the bike, and tried to tie his foot to the pedal. “Sorry. I ony jus-ta earned to tie-a my-a shoes.”

Miss Good Nurse took the two laces and showed him in exaggerated motions. “Around the tree, bunny loop, around the bush, through the hole.” 

Mickey’s hands sought the laces from her and he repeated what she had shown him, “Round the tee, pfunny oop, round the pfush, too the hole.”

Miss Good Nurse smiled. “I’ll walk you back to your room now.”

Mickey slid his bad hand around the handle bars with his good hand and pushed off down the hall back to his room.

\--

The following morning, he awoke on his stomach, laying on his arm. He tried to push himself up but couldn’t, and couldn’t get to the button to call for help either. His heart started pounding – he could feel it in his throat and skull and wondered why he couldn’t feel it in his chest, and was going to ask Miss Good Nurse, as soon as she came and got him out of this position, which might not be for another hour. The thought of staying in this position for another hour, with his body unable to get him out of it made him start whimpering, tears streaming down his face as Da had always told him big boys don’t do. 

So he sucked them back and started kicking his bed, as his free arm didn’t work enough to pound it into the bed. His legs kicked the bed, once, twice. The third time, his foot struck something metal, possibly the edge of the bed, and it hurt. He gave in and started howling. 

Hands were on him turning him upright. It was a nurse, but not Miss Good Nurse, so he kept howling.

“Calm down, Michael!” a man’s voice said to him. 

Mickey flat out refused, so he kept screaming and kicking, and now his good arm was free, shoving against the nurse. “Restrain him. We need to make sure he doesn’t damage himself.”

He felt something – a strip of heavy fabric – across his ankles, making him not be able to move them. “No-a!” he shouted, sitting upright and trying to push them off.

“You must stop screaming,” the doctor said. 

“No! No!” Mickey managed to wrench his legs free, his right one by itself, his left one with the right one’s and his hand’s help, and sat on them to make sure the nurse couldn’t get to them.

“Do you agree to stop screaming?”

Mickey nodded and stopped howling, and tried to stop crying to, which left him feeling like he had hiccups. 

“Good. Now does it hurt anywhere?” the doctor asked.

Mickey shook his head. 

“We will need to run tests on you to find out why…” 

Mickey was able to fill in the rest and explained, “I-ya couldn move. I was on my-a tummy, an’ my arm was under me-ya an’ I-ya couldn get up. An if I-ya had ta go, I couldn’ta.”

The doctor sighed and put a hand on his forehead, petting his hair. “There, there. Do you have to go to the bathroom now?”

Mickey shrugged. The nurse carried him to the bathroom. Mickey didn’t protest. The doctor was noting something down as she did. When Mickey and the nurse got back, the doctor was no longer in the room. Another nurse wheeled in oatmeal, which Mickey tried to eat and managed to only drool a little out of the left side of his mouth. Still, at the nurse wiping his mouth with a napkin, he felt a sickening, hot feeling that felt like tears tasted. “Can-a you give me-ya te coworin pfook-a?”

“The coloring book?” the nurse repeated.

Mickey nodded. “Yes.”

The nurse put the coloring book on the desk with the crayons next to it. “There you are.”

Mickey sighed and leaned back against the bed. “Tank you.”

“Anything else?”

Mickey shook his head and the nurse left the room. After she was gone, he opened to a page and took out the red crayon and the orange crayon and scribbled back and forth over the page with both hands in jerky motions until he was no longer feeling the sick, angry heat. 

\--

He was still in a sulky mood when lunch arrived. It was soup and jello. “Can I-ya have ticken pwease?” he complained when he saw the soup.

“No, Michael. You can’t move your mouth well enough that you might not bite the inside of your cheeks,” the nurse with the food said.

Mickey found being told he couldn’t do something that he could do before brought the same hot feeling as earlier that morning to all his limbs. He shoved the soup away from him, spilling some of it on the side table they slid across his bed to eat or color. “Es I-ya can-a!”

“Michael…”

“It Mick-ey!” he shouted. If his Da was there, he would have gotten a walloping for shouting like that at any adult, but that was part of the problem. His Da wasn’t there. His Mama would surely understand and let him eat just a little to show he could, or Jeannie would sneak him some, or he’d wander by Billy or Jake’s plate and take some from it when they weren’t looking and make Jeannie giggle. But here he was explaining to this dumb nurse who couldn’t even call him by the right name that yes, he could eat it. “I-ya won’ eat it-ta!” he said, pulling his stupid arm across his chest with his good arm and then tucking his good arm into it – he could make believe it could hold itself up that way. 

“Mickey…”

“I-ya won’ an’ ‘ou can’ta make-a me-ya!” He could hear his speech getting worse the angrier he got, but he couldn’t do anything about it. He wanted to cry, but big boys didn’t, so that just made him angrier.

“You can’t eat anything else,” the nurse tried to calm him down.

“Ten-na I-ya sa-tawve!” Mickey declared. His face felt sunburnt it was so hot.

“Would pudding do?” the nurse asked.

Mickey’s frown deepened. Normally pudding would work, but he wanted chicken and burgers and normal people food. He wanted out of these jammies and back into real clothes. He wanted to go running around with Billy and Jake, instead of getting his foot laced to the bike pedal so he could ride around. He wanted a lot of things, and staying in this room wasn’t working. “I-ya want ta see Leo-a!” he burst out.

“Who?”

He thought about it, unsure why he had said that. Maybe it was because he was the only other kid in the whole hospital. Maybe it was because he understood and didn’t talk down to him at all. Maybe it was because Mickey still had to show him how to tie a bow. Whatever the reason, he wanted to see him. He didn’t even think a toddler would mind if he cried in front of him, though he was going to be the brave bigger kid and not cry. “Te kid-da hwhose Mama is gettin’ chemo,” Mickey declared.

The nurse nodded. “I will check. But in return, you must eat the soup.”

Mickey’s pout deepened. “I’ma sick of it-ta!” he whined. He knew it was whining too, and knew his Mama would greet it with her typical warning of saying his name in that tone, and yet he didn’t care.

“Try two bites of it and then I will go see what I can do,” the nurse coaxed.

Mickey rolled his eyes, grabbed the spoon and shoved a spoonful at his mouth. It was indifferent tasting again, but he took another bite then met her eyes. “Two.” He nodded at her.

She raised an eyebrow at him, replied, “Very well,” and left the room.

Just in time too, because Mickey’s stomach growled so he shoved down another spoonful and another. 

When she came back, she nodded at him. “I asked, and he will be here later this afternoon.”

Mickey leaned back with a sigh. “I-ya will eat-ta te soup-pa.”

\--

Afternoon came and the older man with white hair and very pale skin compared to Leo carried the toddler in. When Leo saw Mickey, he looked at his Grampa and nodded. His Grampa set him down and he walked over to Mickey’s bed. “Hi,” he greeted, climbing up on the bed. 

He sat on Mickey’s leg, earning an “Ow!” out of Mickey. Leo’s face shot up in surprise. 

“What hurts?” He glanced around and at his Grampa, face seeming timid, scared even.

“You ah sittin on-a my-a leg-ga!” 

“Oh.” Leo scrambled six inches over and off Mickey’s leg. 

Mickey laughed. “It’s-a good.”

Leo began to smile back at him and then started laughing as well. Mickey began to laugh along with Leo, making Leo laugh more.

“I’ll leave you two to it,” Leo’s Grampa said.

“You said tutu!” Leo gasped out between laughter.

Leo’s Grampa shook his head. “May you one day have a sister who’s into ballet and tutus.”

Leo sat up, expressive face dropping into a look of mock-horror. 

Leo’s Grampa laughed, came over to pet Leo’s hair and said, “I’ll be right outside if you need anything.” And he grabbed the chair that was in the room and left.

Leo said, “So what do you have to play with?”

Mickey shrugged. “I-ya have a co’orin pfook-a.”

Leo grinned. “Cool! I want to color in it!” 

“Okay.” Mickey pulled it out and the crayons too and gave them to Leo, who opened the book and flipped past Mickey’s coloring pages. Mickey felt hot and sick for a few moments as Leo surveyed each one, but he didn’t comment or it seemed even notice that Mickey’s coloring was bad, except to see that there was already coloring on each page. 

Mickey relaxing and moved his legs, and his bad leg moved all the way up and under him as well. He laughed and tried to swing his legs back to fully extended again. They both did. “Leo! Leo! Look-ka!” He pulled back the blankets as well as he could and tucked his legs up again. They both moved again.

Leo looked down at his legs and back up at him. “Couldn’t you move them before?”

Mickey shook his head. “No-a. Dat-a is why-a I-ya needed te shoelace around it-a.”

Leo frowned and nodded. “So you’re getting better.”

Mickey nodded and beamed. “Yes. I am.”

“Great! Let’s color!” Leo tore out a page, took out a crayon and began coloring in big strokes, not even staying in the lines, though his look of concentration said he was trying to. Mickey grinned, ripped out a page as well, took another crayon and began coloring.

\--

The day after, Mickey awoke feeling like his entire arm had pins and needles, and it hurt. The nurses came soon enough. “My-ya arm has pin an’ needles!” he said amid panic to them.

Miss Good Nurse was there. “Pwease. My-ya arm hurt-sa!” he repeated to her.

They brought another bed in, put him on it, and began to wheel it out of there and down the hall. He smelled the same icky smell that had filled the air whenever he was getting blood drawn. “No-a.” He flinched away, trying to hide his arm. 

Another nurse held his arm away and Miss Good Nurse held his bad arm down and stuck him with it. There was a long tube attached. Instead of drawing blood, it looked like it was pumping stuff in. Mickey began crying. “Why are you…? Where are you…?”

“Shh.” Miss Good Nurse put a hand on his forehead. “We’re just taking you to make sure that it’s due to it waking back up.”

Somehow, that didn’t help. 

“Why-a te eme’dency?” he asked, catching Miss Good Nurse’s arm.

She rotated her hand around and gave his wrist a little squeeze. “We are just making sure you aren’t relapsing.”

“E-apsin?” Mickey repeated.

“Yes, Mickey. We’re just making sure you aren’t having another stroke. It’s just protocol. Your arm is probably just waking back up.”

Mickey could hear the panic behind her statement. It wasn’t just protocol, otherwise they wouldn’t be moving as fast as they were. “Dere’s a shance dough?” 

Miss Good Nurse met his eyes and gave his wrist a stronger squeeze. “We’ll take care of you, Mickey. Don’t worry.” He nodded, and she let go of his hand.

He lay very still and tightened and untightened his hand around the blanket, trying with his bad hand as well, for all it inched, but he could feel the needle in his arm tugging at his skin, trailing the tube, so he stopped. He could feel his heartbeat pounding away again, and wished he had something to look at to distract him, the way he’d had on the last night he was having a stroke, something nice and bright like the candle, flickering every so often, changing color so he wasn’t distracted from it.

“Breathe, Mickey,” Miss Good Nurse said to him. He nodded and took a deep breath in. He found he couldn’t release it though. He tried to swallow it, but that only caused him to start hiccupping. Miss Good Nurse put her hand on his chest. He sought to move his bad hand to get a smile out of her and curled his hand around her sleeve, clenching it tight with his hand despite the tugging of the needle in his arm. The fabric helped. She looked down at his hand, then met his eyes and smiled, however briefly. He found he could exhale. “It’s going to be alright.”

He nodded. The bed turned a corner and one of the other nurses pushed it up against the wall. Miss Good Nurse reached down and picked him up. He sought to wrap his legs and arms around her as best he could, because he needed the hug, the same way Mama used to give before the twins were born. She gave him a hug then put him down on a cold mat. He cried out.

“Shh,” she said, touching his forehead again, brushing the hair on his temple.

The other nurse was putting the cold gummy gel on him and sticking wires to him. 

Miss Good Nurse took her hand away and back up. “Don’t-ta go-a! Pfwease don go-a!” he called after her.

“I promise this won’t take very long and I’ll be here the whole time.”

“It’sa col-da and too bwight-ta!” he declared. But he was fairly sure all of them knew that and for some reason they would not fix it. 

He could feel a tear sneaking out of his eye and making a run down his cheek. He wouldn’t let any more do that. He scrunched his eyes together and willed future tears back into his face.

There was a bright flash, like lightning coming from all around him, and he froze. Another bright flash left him breathless, his heart pounding on the inside of his chest. There were a few more – he lost count, thinking instead that this was it; one of those bright lightning flash was going to strike him like Mama always warned – and when they stopped eventually, he still saw them on the back of his eyes, more so when he closed them to try to make the dizzying effect go away, and that was worse. 

So as they detached him from the gummy wires and wiped up the sticky, gummy gel, he just stared at the ceiling lights. When they detached him from the tube, his hand curled by itself into a tight fist and he could feel his nails digging into his palm. But his arm had stopped doing pins and needles. He felt he should tell someone that but couldn’t work up how his mouth worked enough to speak up. 

Someone reached down to straighten his hand. He grabbed onto their hand and squeezed. They squeezed back, a comforting squeeze, Miss Good Nurse. She let him keep holding it until he was pushed into a room and returned to his own bed. The nurses, including Miss Good Nurse, left the room, closing the door behind them. 

Only then did he start howling, and turned himself over to pound his fists into the bed.

No one came in. He preferred it that way so he could rage against the whole world.

\--

“The good news is he isn’t having another stroke and appears to be getting better. He has increased mobility in his left hand and leg, though recovery will still take time. We suggest that even after he goes home, you put him through a rigorous exercise regime to build up his strength,” he could hear one of the nurses explaining to someone in the hallway later that day, when he was feeling less sick and his brain felt less like bees and cotton.

“When will that be?” his Mama asked.

“We’re not sure. If he continues to make progress the way he has been, by the end of the week.”

His Mama made a pleased noise. “Can he start school then?”

“We recommend against it for another year. He will not be able to speak with any clarity and will not be able to keep up with his classmates at physical activities.” Mickey thought he was doing a very good job speaking.

His Mama sounded disappointed when she spoke again. “And all this because he was playing somewhere he shouldn’t have been?”

The nurse tried to say. “Children are fragile, Mrs. Rory.”

There was a deep sigh.

“I’ll take care of him.” Jeannie’s voice said into the pause, which meant she was here. Mickey smiled. 

Mama snapped at her. “I want you to do well at your schoolwork. Find yourself a good husband to settle down with.”

“I’ll talk to him when I’m not at school,” Jeannie responded. 

“That would be very good for him. He will need speech exercises.” 

“What will that involve?” his Mama asked.

“Just get him speaking and correct him when he makes the wrong letter. We also can recommend a therapist -.”

“Why would he need a shrink?” his Mama interrupted.

“An occupational therapist who can work with him on moving and on speaking clearly again,” the nurse answered.

“Why can’t he just manage it in a few weeks same as my other boys’ injuries?”

“Ma’am. It isn’t just a broken bone. In this case, it was his brain,” the nurse tried explaining.

“Mom, can I go say hi to him?” Jeannie interrupted as soon as the nurse paused for a breath.

“What? Yes, fine.”

Mickey slipped his coloring book away and opened his bad hand with his good hand then pressed it to the desk so it looked okay. When Jeannie opened the door, he was all but bouncing it his bed. 

“Deannie!” he said.

“Hi, Mickey!” she greeted him and came to sit by his bed. “And how’s my favorite little brother doing today?”

“I-ya heard tem in-na ta hall.” He waved at where his Mama and the nurse were talking.

“Ahh. Yeah. Umm. It sounds like school is gonna have to wait.” She looked embarrassed.

Mickey pouted. “Can you tell tem I’ma awight-a?”

Jeannie looked at the floor and frowned even more. “I can’t always understand you.”

Mickey gaped. “Ten-na I-ya h’will peak cwearer!”

Jeannie burst out laughing and slapped her hand over her mouth, looking horrified. 

Mickey frowned. “What’d I-ya say-a?”

Jeannie said, “It sounded like you said ‘queer.’”

Mickey jutted out his lower jaw. “I didn’t-a! I-ya said-a keer! K… Kw… Fuck my-a tongue!”

Jeannie looked horrified. “Mickey! I’m going to wash your mouth out with soap! And tell Mom!”

Mickey shouted. “No! Deannie! You know I dust sai’ it ‘cause I can – cannot – say keer! Or anytin else eiter! I-ya can say eff dough.”

“Just don’t repeat it okay. Not everything you hear is good to say.”

Mickey sighed. “I-ya know tat.”

Jeannie smiled. 

“What’s sat mean? Queer?” 

Jeannie’s jaw dropped. “I don’t know. When two men go at it. You know what? You’re too young to be having this conversation.”

“Dean-nie,” he elongated the syllables into a whine and gave her his best pleading eyes. 

“Don’t look at me like that!” Jeannie said. “I taught you that while you were still in diapers!”

Mickey grinned and leaned forward. “I’ma pfetter at-ta it-ta ten you are.”

“What can I get you to get you to stop asking about that?”

He bit his lip. “Can I-ya get a cand’e and a lighter like Da’s?

“Did you say candy?” She looked like she was trying not to grin.

He shook his head. “No-a, cand-ell.”

Jeannie stared at him as if he had grown a second head. “Why?” 

He shrugged. “If I-ya ‘ook at it-ta, I-ya feel pfetter.”

Jeannie frowned. “I feel like I should mention that to someone.”

He pouted. “Pwease?”

Jeannie glanced out into the hallway and flashed him a smile. “I’ll see what I can do. Now what have you been up to since the last time I was here?”

He told her, and when his Mama came in and hugged him and kissed him on the head, he smiled back at her and told them both, “I-ya ‘ove you.”

“I love you too, sweetems.”

\--

Miss Good Nurse came in shortly afterward. 

“I-ya hwan ta ‘ide te pfike,” Mickey declared.

She nodded. “Very well. Let’s get you up and on the bike.”

Once there, she tied his foot down. “Can-na you teash me-ya to tie a pfow?”

She grinned. “Of course, Mickey!” She untied her previous bow. “Over, under, around and through. Meet Mr. Bunny Rabbit, pull and through.”

He watched her do it then untied her knot and took the lace in his right hand. He tried to get his left hand around it but could not get it open. So he took his good hand, opened his left hand with it and closed it around the lace, then took the other lace up in his right hand again. “Over.” He did the motion. “Under.” He copied that motion as well. “’ound-da?” He looked at here for confirmation that he was doing it right. She nodded. “True!” he yelled.

“No, like this.” She repeated it.

“Oh-wa.” He tried it again. “Mee Mr. Pfunny Apfit?” He did that. She nodded. “An pull true?” And there in front of him was a lovely bow. “I-ya did it-ta!”

“Great! Now where would you like to go?”

“To see Leo!” 

“Let’s go check if he’s in today.”

Mickey nodded and started pushing down on the peddles. 

“By the way, you just made the L sound. I thought you might want to know.”

They rode and walked down the hall to Leo’s mom’s room, to find her gone and a young man sitting in the chair by her bed, holding onto a stuffed animal that Mickey was fairly sure was a bear but it had bright pink ears and was holding a bright pink heart. He was also holding his arm stiffly, the same way Bill had for a while when he had broken a bone. He also smelled like the bar down the street on Sunday morning. Mickey wrinkled his nose. It wasn’t a good smell. He also looked like he could use his mama telling him to straighten up his clothes and wash them for him.

“Is Leo here?” Mickey asked.

The man started, wincing as he moved his arm too suddenly. “What the hell is wrong with you, boy?”

Mickey gasped and tried to get off the bike, but something hung onto his shoe, and the bike started tipping over. Miss Good Nurse put a stabilizing hand on his shoulder.

“Sir, he is in stroke recovery.”

The man scoffed. “That’s a lie. Brats his age don’t get strokes. Everybody knows only old folks get strokes.”

Miss Good Nurse’s scowl deepened. “Well, he’s here and he’s a child and he’s had a stroke, so make of that what you will. Now he’s looking for his friend.”

The man frowned. “What the hell does he want with my son?” 

Mickey did not see how such a smart, funny kid could ever be this man’s son. 

Miss Good Nurse shared a glance with Mickey and smiled at him. “They’ve become friends.”

The man glanced back at Mickey, giving him an expression that made Mickey want to stick out his tongue, even if it meant his Mama would threaten to wash his mouth out with soap. “That entire safe? What if what gave him his stroke is contagious?” the man said.

Mickey could feel Miss Good Nurse not being impressed. “I can assure you it is not.”

“Well, I don’t know where the hell that brat is right now. Probably with his grandfather driving him around town in his ice cream truck if I know my old man.”

Mickey nodded. “I-ya can-na wait till-a tomowow ten, sir.”

The man turned an expression of mockery towards Mickey. “’Canna?’ What are you, Irish, boy?”

Mickey frowned. “I-ya from just up-pa Oak-ka Steet.”

Miss Good Nurse said, “He has speech difficulties because he just had a stroke, sir.”

“Eh, if it were up to me he wouldn’t be allowed near my boy.” He went to lean forward and groaned, putting a head to his forehead.

Mickey’s Mama recommended if anyone ever smelled like that and had a headache, they should drink some water or orange juice or coffee. “You thould dink some-a water, sir. It might help with your headache,” he said.

“Get out of here or I’ll make you regret it!” the man said.

Miss Good Nurse took the back of Mickey’s bike, turned it around and walked it and Mickey out the door. Once outside, she said, “What a terrible man!”

Mickey turned to her. “Tat couldn’t-a be Leo’s-a Da!”

Miss Good Nurse nodded. “Sometimes people aren’t always raised by their mommies and daddies. Sometimes it’s only their mommy, or their grandparent.”

“So Leo’s Grandpa and te nice lady from-a pfefore are raising him?”

Miss Good Nurse nodded. “It’s sounds like it, Mickey.” She glanced back at the door and put and hand on Mickey’s head to brush his hair. “Let’s go back to your room, and you can pick out another coloring book, or maybe a dot-to-dot book.”

“And tomowow we can go pway wit-a Leo?” Mickey said.

Miss Good Nurse smiled. “We’ll see, Mickey.”

Mickey got an idea and turned to her. “Is it tomowow aweady?”

Miss Good Nursee laughed, and Mickey smiled. 

They spent until lunch doing dot-to-dots. 

\--

Jeannie stopped by the following morning. “How are you feeling today?” she asked.

He looked down at her outfit then back up at her. “Did you take-a the pfus?”

She nodded. “I can’t stay long, Mickey, but I got you Da’s spare lighter and a candle. Just don’t light the candle in here.”

He stared at her. “But wha’ am I-ya ‘upposed to light ten?”

“I don’t know. Can you even light Da’s lighter? Maybe just work on that?”

“Course I-ya can!” he insisted. It was a lie. He had never held Da’s lighter ever, but he was sure he could figure out how to light it.

She saw through his first lie. “When have you ever held a lighter before, Mickey?”

“Da let me,” he lied.

She made an impressed expression, and looked at him as though reassessing his abilities with the implement. “Alright then. If Da’s determined you’re old enough. Just don’t burn yourself or light anything on fire you shouldn’t!” She bossed him. 

He beamed up at her. “So I-ya can-na light te candle?”

“No, they’ll find out and then they’ll take it away and we’ll both get in trouble!”

“I won light it-ta where tey can-na see-ya,” he told her.

She stamped her foot. “Why can’t you just hold the lighter lit up?” 

He considered it. It would probably work just as well as staring at that candle had to distract him from how bad he felt. 

Unfortunately, she saw something in his face that made her grab for it. “I shouldn’t have given it to you in the first place.”

He held it away from her. 

“Give it back! I shouldn’t have given it to you!” She reached across him and nearly caught his hand, but in doing so she leaned on his bad ankle. 

“Ow!” he yelled, holding it even further away. “Deannie, I-ya won tell anyone!”

“They’ll see you with it and take it away from you! And you can’t lie to save your life!”

“No-wa, tey won’t! I on’y use it when nopfody’s looking!” he promised again.

She pulled back. “Fine. Watch as they take it away from you and get both of us in trouble!”

“Tey won’t! I-ya promise!” She looked back at him.

“Fine. As long as you promise. Pinkie swear.”

“You said swear.”

“It just means… ugh, pinkie promise.”

“Okay. Pinkie promise.” He held out his pinkie, and she hooked hers with it.

“Now, you can’t show anyone.”

He nodded.

“Alright. Come here. Lemme give you a kiss.”

“Eww! Deannie!”

“On the forehead, you little pest! Come here.” She kissed him on the forehead. “I have to go.”

“Don’ta miss your pfus!” he called after her.

He shoved the candle behind the blinds and the lighter under his coloring book at the side of his bed. Just in time too, because the nurse arrived with breakfast. 

Once she had gone, he took out the lighter and held the mechanism close to his face to see how it worked. He saw the spinning wheel and the hole and the button. He tried pressing the button. It didn’t light, but it did release a smell like the tractor, or the stuff Da and Jake poured on the wood to build a bonfire. Having it so close to his face made his nose itch. He sneezed and shook his head. 

Button then. He tried pushing the button. It clicked, but other than a momentary crackle, there was nothing. He frowned at it, chewing on his lip and remembering what Jake had told him about bonfire and the smell – “you have ta make sure there’s enough gas on the wood so it goes up.” If he pulled that to this, he had to make sure there was enough gas for it to light. 

Button closely following wheel. He spun the wheel and the pressed down on the button. A shot of flame rushed into the air. He let go of the button and dropped the lighter in surprise. The flame died. 

He picked it back up and tried in again, this time holding it a little further from his face. Wheel then button.

The flame stayed lit. 

He let out a deep breath and stared at the little flame coming from the lighter, noting how it blew sideways when he breathed out. He chuckled to himself and watched as the flame danced. He took his thumb off the button, and the flame when out. It would work well if after lights out, he lit the candle and watched it until he fell asleep. He tucked it in beside his coloring book, pulled that out and started coloring on a blank page. 

Leo’s Grampa and Leo came in, thanking someone outside. “Leo!” Mickey shouted. “Look-ka I’ma coloring wit pfot hands-sa!”

Leo’s Grampa patted Leo on the back on the shoulder and the toddler ran over and climbed on his bed. Leo’s Grampa said, “Can ya now? Ya know they call that ambidextrous and it’s a talent.”

Mickey grinned at him. “Ampfi – wha’ now?”

“Ambidextrous, kiddo. It means both-handed.” 

Mickey frowned. “Are you-a making fun-na of me-ya?”

Leo’s Grampa approached. “Never. May I sit?”

Leo scrambled to the other side of the bed as Mickey nodded. 

Leo’s Grampa sat. “May I see your crayon?”

Leo grinned. “What are you gonna draw, Grampa?”

Leo’s Grampa smiled at him and pulled him close. “I’m not gonna draw something. Gonna show your friend here that sometimes grown up’s hands ain’t up to snuff either.” He switched the crayon into his left hand and wrote a few words in what was clearly very trying and careful writing for him. He had his tongue out. Mickey would have loved to adopt him, if adopting a Grampa was even possible. He handed the page to Mickey. 

It was chicken scratch. Mickey could tell where the spaces were, but that was about all he could tell. He knew the shape of his letters and the sounds each of them made. He could even recognize a few letters in his Mama’s delicate cursive, when she was trying to write all fancy in letters and thank-you cards. Here, he could not recognize anything.

“This is writing?” he asked Leo’s Grampa, who threw back his head with a grin. 

“Never learned to be ambidextrous. So if you’re learning that, you’re ahead of the game,” he explained.

Mickey grinned up at him. “I like you.”

Leo nodded. “He’s cool. And he’s my Grampa!”

Leo’s Grampa smiled at him. “And don’t you forget it!”

Mickey looked at both Leo and his Grampa. “Do you wan ta color?”

Leo’s Grampa looked down at Leo, who beamed. “Yeah! I’d love to!”

Leo’s Grampa smiled at Mickey. “I’d love to.”

Mickey ripped out two pages from the coloring book and handed one to each of them. Leo picked up a crayon and started scribbling across the page. Leo’s Grampa picked up a crayon and started coloring more carefully. 

Leo got bored after he had covered half the page in blue and gazed down at his Grampa’s page. Mickey put down his crayon and glanced over Leo’s Grampa’s arm at the drawing as well and was taken aback at how good the coloring was. It seemed to pop out of the page. “I like your dawing.”

“Thank you, Mickey.”

A nurse came in through the door then. “Mr. Snart?” she said.

Leo’s Grampa looked up. “Yes?” He stood up after a moment of studying her face, moving Leo off his lap. “Is everything okay?”

“Mr. Snart, come with me.”

“Wait here,” he told Leo, then crossed the room to the nurse. “Alright.” Before he left, Mickey scanned his face and saw that it was gray with a clenched expression.

Leo tugged his sleeve. “Come on, Mickey! Let’s keep coloring!”

Mickey turned from the door, grinned as best he could at Leo, then tore out two pages, one for him and one for Leo and grabbed a crayon. 

\--

He was teaching Leo how to color in the lines – by drawing lines just inside the thing you wanted to color in then coloring inside of them – and Leo seemed to be getting the hang of it, when his Grampa walked in. 

“Leo,” he said. There were tears in his eyes and his eyes were red and puffy. He squatted down as Leo ran to him. “Leonard.”

Leo ran into his arms and hugged him. “Are you alright?” An idea occurred to him and he started inspecting his Grampa’s face with fast, worried, little hands. “Daddy wasn’t mean to you, right?”

Leo’s Grampa winced and took Leo’s hands away from his face and arms and then picked the toddler up. “If he’s ever mean to you again, you tell me, right?”

Leo nodded. 

“No, it’s…” he winced again. “The surgery didn’t go so good.”

Leo frowned. “Mommy’s surgery?”

His Grampa nodded. 

“Is she okay? Does that mean she’s gotta be here even longer?” Leo asked.

His Grampa hugged him. 

“If I give her my picture, will that help her feel better?” Leo asked.

His Grampa hugged him tighter.

“If I draw her something, or, or maybe you can bring her ice cream? That always makes Mommy and me feel better!”

“Leo,” his Grampa said. “I’m afraid she won’t be coming home.” 

Mickey started feeling the salty, hot feeling well up in the back of his eyes. He didn’t know why and yet he did. 

Leo pushed himself back from his Grampa’s shoulder. “She staying here forever?” 

The Grampa shook his head. “No, Leo. She going to old Rabbi Cohen’s place.” 

Leo’s frown deepened. “Why’s she staying with him and his wife?” 

“She… I’m afraid she’s dead, little one.”

Mickey felt like ice water had been dumped over him. Dead meant that thing that happened to animals when they had to be buried or to old people when their rooms stank and then you didn’t see them again, but not to people like Leo’s Mommy. 

Leo’s tipped his head in non-comprehension. “Why is she dead? She didn’t do nothing. She didn’t break the law. No cops were involved. She can’t be dead!”

Mickey felt the salty, hot feeling well up in his throat. His shoulders started to shake and his eyes started to burn. He sniffed back tears before they could fall.

“Leo, that’s not the only time people die. Sometimes things go wrong with people and the hospital can’t fix them.”

“But she’ll come back, right? I can still see her.”

“No, Leo. I’m afraid she’s dead, baby.”

“But then who will tuck me in at night? Who will sing me songs? Who will make me lunch? Who will make Daddy lunch?” Leo asked. “She’s gotta come back.”

“I’ll keep tucking you in at night and making you lunch, kiddo.”

Tears were starting to overcome Leo’s eyes. “But then who will take me to temple? Who will be Mommy?”

“I’m sorry, Leo, kiddo,” his Grampa murmured the words of apology under his breath. Leo began hiccupping. Mickey found tears at the backs of his eyes that were starting to leak over his eyelashes. 

“No!” Leo shouted. “No! No, no, no!” 

“I’m sorry,” Leo’s Grampa repeated. 

Leo grabbed hold of his shirt and stuffed his face into it. “I wanna see her! I wanna see Mommy!” he demanded.

His Grampa carried him from the room.

After the door had closed, Mickey started sobbing too, and was still crying with his face stuffed into his pillow when Miss Good Nurse came in. He let her pick him up and hold him, but would only stop crying after she called his Mama and let him speak to her.

\--

The following day, he was able to get his foot to follow his instructions to it enough to walk across the room by himself to go to the bathroom, though his foot was still angled out too far and the inside of his heel was lifting up making his ankle turn under him. 

He turned to Miss Good Nurse when he got back to bed. Chest puffed out, he declared, “I-ya wan ta go-wa home-ma.”

“I will discuss it with your mama when she comes in today.” She put her hand on his.

“I-ya can-na talk-ka. I can-na walk-ka. I can-na ‘ide-da a-ya bike-a. And da docta say-za tere’s not’ing he-ya can-na find dat’sa ‘ong wit me-ya. Can-na I-ya go-wa home-ma?” Mickey said.

“Let’s see what the doctor says.”

He shook her hand off. “Docta – doc-ka – say-za he-ya can-ta fin-da not’ing ‘ong! I-ya want ta go-wa home-ma ta Mama! I-ya want ta see-ya Mama.”

She stopped and stared at him, then closing her eyes, sighed and nodded. “You will still have to have regular appointments.”

He frowned at her. “Pfut f’om home-ma, ‘ight?”

She nodded again. “We will see, but the doctor should say yes. Now, will you try something for me?”

He tipped his head, frown deepening. “I-ya don want ta.”

“Give it a try for a minute.”

He stared at her. “I-ya get ta go-wa home after, ‘ight?”

She nodded again.

He shrugged. 

“Press your lips together.”

He tried to press them together as much as he could and nodded at her when he couldn’t press them anymore – the muscles only wanted to follow his control so much.

“Buh. Buh. Buh,” she repeated.

“Puh. P-fuh. Puh,” he tried to get his lips to make that sound. 

“No. Buh.”

He pinched his lips together with his finger and then tried to make the sound. “Buh.” He grinned. “I-ya did it-ta!”

She ruffled his hair. “Yes, but now we’re trying to get you to a point where you don’t need your fingers to let you make the sound.”

“How?” he asked.

He shouldn’t have, as she ended up giving him a licorice shoelace with a marshmallow of the end of it and telling him that only if he got to the end using nothing but his lips to inch the thing into his mouth could he have the marshmallow. 

He got halfway before his lip muscles were spasming in agony, and he had to stop. He pulled the offending piece of licorice out of his mouth. “I’ hurt-ta-sa!”

She put a hand on his shoulder. “You did very well for a first try.”

“Put Uh didn’ get ta da ma’s’meyo-a!” he spoke too fast and heard the utter garbage coming out of his mouth.

“Marshmallow.”

He tugged his bad arm up to fold it across his chest and then folded his other arm around it and glared. “No-wa.”

“Mickey,” she spoke in the same tone as Jeannie did when he didn’t want to do her chores.

He shouted at her. “No-wa! No-wa! No-wa! No-wa! I’ma tire’!”

“Marshmallow,” she kept insisting.

He shoved at her. “I don wanna. An’ ya can’ta make-ka me-ya!” He curled both hands into little fists on the desk across his bed. His left one curled around his thumb.

She held up her hands to admit defeat. “Alright. Tomorrow then. For now,” she pulled the marshmallow off the licorice, “here is the marshmallow.”

He reached over and plucked in from her hand. “Tank you, Miss-a Goo’ Nurse.”

She smiled at him and gave him a juice box with a straw. “Here you go. I’ll go see where lunch is.”

He watched her go and said to himself and the teddy bear in his stuff, “I want ta go-wa home-ma an’ see Mama.”

\--

Sure enough, his Mama was in later that day. The first thing he did when he saw her was stand up on his bed – thank goodness his leg held and he could bend it when he wanted to with his brain – and launch himself into her arms as soon as she got close.

“Mama! I want ta go-wa home-ma!” he said from her shoulder, which smelled just like her soap and shampoo. He hugged her tighter and wrapped his good leg around her waist. She hugged him too, shifting his weight around to her hip. He let himself be moved, but they could dream on if they thought they were detaching him from her ever.

“Are you okay, Mickey, baby?” 

“You’re not-ta goin’ ta die ever, ‘ight-ta? Not till you’re old-da an’ sa’mell like-ka onion’sa an’ pee-ya like old Mrs. Sanford-da use’ ta, ‘ight-ta, Mama?”

She shifted him back around to peer at him. “Mickey, what’s wrong? What happened?”

“One of the other patients died of cancer. He had made friends with her boy,” Miss Good Nurse’s voice sounded from the door. 

Mickey’s Mama turned to face her. “And he found out about this?”

“Yes.” Miss Good Nurse gave a nod.

“How much longer does he have to stay here?” his Mama asked.

“He can stand and walk on his own now. But I would recommend occupational therapy to retrain him to use his hand and mouth and to get him to run.” 

“Are you a doctor?”

“No, just a nurse, but I have experience with strokes -,” Miss Good Nurse started to answer.

His Mama interrupted with, “I want to hear it from a doctor.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Miss Good Nurse ducked back out.

The doctor who ran the blood tests came. “Mrs. Rory?” he asked. She nodded. “Come with me.”

She managed to detach herself from Mickey with reassurances that she would be back and followed the doctor down the hall. Mickey looked up from the bed at Miss Good Nurse. She pulled out the chair from the wall and sat down across from him.

“Mickey, I want to tell you something.”

He nodded.

“Life won’t be easy for you. I want you to take a deep breath and count to ten. Can you do that with me?”

“Un, two-wa, tee-ya, four-a, fife-a, sick-a-sa, sefen-na, eight-ta, nine-a, ten-na,” he counted.

“That’s very good. And I want you to do that whenever people are mean to you,” she told him.

He gazed at her, his eyes taking in that for some reason, she was worried people would be. “I’ya will.”

 

His Mama came back into the room shortly. “Come on, Mickey. We’re going home.”

Mickey held up his arms. His Mama came over, dumped his stuff from the side bin, including the lighter. He held his breath, but it slid under the stuffed animal, and no one saw it. 

She picked Mickey up, putting him on her hip and his stuff on her other hip. Mickey curled his good hand into her blouse and leaned his head against her shoulder.

“Say thank you to Miss Betty,” she told Mickey.

“Tank-a you-wa,” Mickey said to Miss Good Nurse.

Mickey smiled up at his Mama. It would be nice to be home. He promised himself he wouldn’t let her out of his sight for the next week and then he’d be off to kindergarten, no matter what anybody said.


End file.
